VATICAN II AND POLAND 177method of social engineering... from the standpoint of efficacy,
from a pragmatic standpoint, seeing principally that integrist
methods are less pastorally effective in the rechristianization of
the world than the ‘open’ method.”159 To this, Mazowiecki, Eska,
and their colleagues responded in unison that they meant to
demonstrate “a spirit of service and solidarity toward people of
other convictions”—they meant Marxists—citing as an encour-
aging sign the Holy See’s 1964 Partial Agreement with Commu-
nist Hungary.160
Time in Rome gave the Więź editors real hope of making
“open Catholicism” a reality. Mazowiecki traveled from Brus-
sels to Rome in June 1963 to attend John XXIII’s funeral, which
proved to be one of the defining experiences of his adult life. A
mere five months later, Zabłocki and Zawieyski took the initia-
tive in reestablishing ties between the Polish Church and the
Moscow patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. As it
happened, Archpriest Vitaly Borovoy had studied in Warsaw in
the 1930s, and he spoke fluent Polish; the Polish activists made
contact with him and tried to get their primate to take a meet-
ing with him.161 Wyszyński demurred, insensitive to the impor-
tance that the ZNAK activists attached to their own efforts. For
Zawieyski and Zabłocki, however, every conversation they had
spelled a life-or-death opportunity to reconnect Polish Catholi-
cism with the rest of the world.162
Many of the contacts made by ZNAK with Catholics from
across the Iron Curtain would outlast even the end of the Cold
War. The results included substantive and substantial intellec-
tual and political exchanges, as well as personal friendships. The
same Christian Democratic émigré activists who set Zabłocki
- Ibid., 23.
- Ibid., 20, 21.
- See, for example, Vitaly Borovoy, “The Meaning of Catholicity,” Ecumenical
Review 16, no. 1 (1963): 26–32. - Zabłocki, Dzienniki, 1:495; Zawieyski, Dzienniki, 2:377–78.